Ogilvy NZ and Lumo puts Women’s Work where it belongs this International Women’s Day
To mark International Women’s Day, Ogilvy New Zealand in partnership with Lumo have launched a campaign and exhibition to put Women’s Work where it belongs – in commercial ad space.
The campaign is running in high impact Lumo outdoor sites throughout Auckland and Wellington, alongside a ‘Women’s Work’ exhibition which is showing at the Ellen Melville Centre until the 12th of March. Women’s Work is a collective of female and non-binary professional photographers who are working hard to increase representation across the industry, and to level the playing field for commercial opportunities.
The ads in the campaign will showcase the talent of the ‘Women’s Work’ collective in categories still dominated by male photographers, and ask the advertising industry to have a good hard think about the inequity in the statistics.
Says Kristal Knight, executive creative director at Ogilvy NZ: “Women influence over 85% of consumer goods purchases. Across many categories, women are the primary targets and the biggest spenders. But the proportion of advertising imagery shot by women is still less than 20%. With this year’s International Women’s Day theme being ‘Embrace Equity’, it’s a fitting moment to pose the question to the advertising industry – why?
“It’s incredible to think how much money the industry aims to make from selling to women, without giving them an equal opportunity to earn it by shooting the ads. I know from my own experience of being art director for 20 odd years that this probably comes from unconscious bias – of typecasting the work of photographers, making selections based on what the photographer has done in the past, not by what they are capable of doing. So some categories have become more male dominated, like car photography for example, and it’s become harder and harder for women to get a foot in the door to these jobs. We wanted to challenge the industry to take a moment and think about the role we play in these stats.”
Says Victoria Baldwin, founder of Women’s Work: “Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. But equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Which is why it’s so important we use International Women’s Day as a platform to help get female photographers the exposure they need for a level playing field. The support of Ogilvy and Lumo will help us make some much-needed noise.”
Ogilvy NZ
CEO: Kelly-Ann Maxwell
Managing Partner: Megan Clark Cook
Executive Creative Director: Kristal Knight
Senior Art Director: Glenn Chapman
Senior Art Director: Diana Winter
Resource Manager: Ellie Walker-Huizing
Studio: Ian Wood
Women’s Work
Founder/Producer: Briar Pacey
Founder/Photographer ‘Car ads’: Victoria Baldwin
Photographer ‘Fashion’: Mara Sommer
Photographer ‘Activewear’: Michelle Hyslop
Photographer ‘Women in sport (beam)’: Sacha Stejko
Photographer ‘Women in sport (rock climber) / ‘Holidays’: Virginia Woolf
Lumo:
Chief Marketing Officer: Hamish Smith
GM – Programmatic: Jack Plowright
14 Comments
Male, female or non-binary, photography as an occupation is more difficult than ever with the gradual devaluation of photography since the introduction and increased accessibility of digital cameras, let alone the shift toward video and whatever is on the horizon with generative ai.
Seems like a strange industry/occupation to go after with the number of fat-cats getting around making bank, while ruining the planet and doing nothing about gender misrepresentation in other industries? But that’s cool, let’s make life more difficult for already struggling photographers.
Err…so you’re saying because this sector is struggling (as many are) the women should sit down and not make a fuss. Leave the boys to get the work for now? They can go find something else to do. Equality doesn’t matter in stretched industries?
Also this campaign existing doesn’t negate any of the other battles out there like those fat-cats making bank and all that gender misrepresentation. Poor argument all round.
@Kick-em, classic. I think everyone reading this will roll their eyes at your comment.
Nice work Kristal & Co, love what you are doing in this space. Going to head down to the Womens work exhibition this week to support photographers who are underrepresented in our industry.
Great initiative but. The copywriting in these are ordinary. Also I’m glad you took pics of these because no one is going to read a 20 WORD HEADLINE in Ooh
This is like a poor version of Saatchi’s Women’s Work Collective campaign.
Not to butt in (although I’m going to), it might be worthwhile the people rolling their eyes to look at their own organisation/industry. It does feels weird to alienate a smaller, mostly freelance proportion of the creative industry, when the industry itself is pretty skewed.
Great. Everyones equal. Now can we get on with our jobs…
Pongs of ad industry. Sherl at the bakery doesn’t care who shoots a car she can’t afford or even the tampons that she can. Find something that people genuinely give a stuff about or impacts ordinary women’s lives.
Well said. Its getting a tad tedious now
Impressed. Yes. An important message to get out there. And look at all the angry trolls on Campaign Brief coming out of the woodworks once again! Leshgo women.
It’s average work, but for a good cause.
55% of men do the household banking so only men should shoot bank ads. Sounds a bit silly right?
It really does! But kudos for posting your point anyway despite it’s ridiculousness.
We can play claims inflation all the way. 100% of men are borne to a woman. So maybe first dibs on all the jobs should go to women then? If that’s the thrust of your argument and how you wanna play it?
But that’s not the point of this work and you know it. You also know that it’s a completely fair argument that’s being made. But what you’re reacting to is your personal fear of equality. Maybe you know this and maybe you don’t. But that’s what it is.
Whether this is the best example of work advocating and provocating for better female representation or not is a moot point. It’s annoyed you and made this a post more people are going to read – so it’s worked.
The creative team responsible won the grand axis last year and I bet have many other awards in their time. They know what they’re doing and they clearly have an ambition for the future that is balanced and representative, and also is willing to stick their neck out to achieve this. What’s yours?
And for clarity I’m an old white man that is completely comfortable accepting that we’ve had a pretty easy ride for quite some time.
Seeing as you’re defending the work in the comments here, you might want to pop over to CB Australia and see what people are saying in the comments (including female photographers). Eek.
Condescending much? As a woman in the industry, advancing based on my talent and work ethic is what I value, not based on my gender. Be good at what you do, work hard and you’ll succeed. These campaigns cause resentment and division.